Day 3.

Wow. So Launch48 Edinburgh 2010 is over, but comparetheuniversities.com has only just begun.

What an incredible weekend. I’ve met some incredible people, and together we’ve built an small idea into an actual product and business. Where we go from here is a whole new experience.

So what did I personally get out of the weekend? Apart from a great time, I got the opportunity to lead a team of really talented people which taught me so much about leadership, business and myself. I had very limited leadership skills before this weekend began, but I was thrown in the deep end and ended up leading our team to a successful product launch.

But I made mistakes, of course I did. I sometimes asked for things that were unresonable. I asked people to change what they were doing or had planned because it didn’t match my deas for the project. I didn’t organise things properly, too many times I was asking team members “what are you working on?” rather than assigning concret tasks and monitoring progress.

But this all a learning experience. I have come out of this weekend a stronger person, a better leader and I did get to shine occasionally.

The one thing I think I’m good at, and the thing I got to do a few times this weekend, was speak in public. That was cool. I think I’m good at that and I got some great feedback after our final presentation.

I think when we move on from here we need to think about who we can bring in to help us move on. We need:

- A Technical Lead. We need someone with experience to come in a take ownership of our technical development to help us move to the next level.

- Sales and Marketing expansion. We need bodies to being negotiating with Universities, driving our site usage upwards and help us engage with our audience.

- Business leadership. We need to focus our business strategy and taking steps to cement our ideas

So that’s us. We’re going to “go dark” for a bit now while we take a step back, work out where we are, re-evaulate our strategies and speak to our lawyers. :)

No doubt you’ll see and hear from us soon. Launch48 showcase and SIE new venture competition are only a short time away!

Thanks to Launch48 for everything. It may be intesive, exhausting, challenging and maybe not quite realistic, but it’s a hell of an incubator for ideas.

See you soon.

James

CEO - CompareTheUniversties.com

At the final presentation!

Hi Guys,

this is the story of James, who is a prospective student with the best grades at school. He is only 17 years old and he has already won the first place on the computer science competition among all Edinburgh schools. All, his family, friends, teachers are very proud of him. His biggest dream is to go to the University next year and his biggest worries are also connected with his dream. Nobody from his family has ever studied at university, so he could be the first from the family.

But where can he find the best universities in Scotland? He doesn’t want just a good university for study, he  also wants excellent extracurricular activities like sport or social events or even parties. This were only part of his criteria.

…One day his best friend told him about the new website called: www.comparetheuniversitites.com. This site offered him plenty of possibilities - on it he could find not only the best Universities in Scotland offering computer science but also meeting all his expectations in matters of life at the university

Sooo Are you curious about our website? Do you want to join us and make your success story come true? Do you want to save time and get at a glance quick, clear and easy results…. We do the best for your life. Trust us.

Our first video!

Working hard!

It’s just after 1am. It’s been an unbelievable night. I’m experiencing such a mix of emotions. All at once I’m tired, exhilirated, exited and daunted. We’ve got a huge task ahead of us.

Tonght at around 7.15am I pitched the idea for CompareTheUniversities.com - a sight to help young people make decisions about which higher education institute they want to goto. We’ll collect data and allow people to filter that data based on choices: Areas of Interest, Finance, Location, Student satisfaction…

That idea got through to the second round and I answered some questions

How will you mash up the data? 

Is this UK only?

Then we waited for the final vote count. There were going to be 4 groups. They read out 3 projects and then silence. The next shout was going to change my weekend, possibly even my life. 

“Compare the Universities”

I nearly punched the air. It was amazing that people had voted for my idea to continue.

Then everyone chose which group they wanted to be in and suddenly around me and this idea a band of 12 people formed who were going to work hard to make it a reality. I was blown away.

So we grabbed a beer and got down to work. After quick introductions we set about deciding and clarifiyng what we were going to do and then breaking into teams to start planning indepth. It was amazing to see so many talented people take this idea and run with it.

A special mention at this point must goto Ralf. He played Devil’s Advocate and made me really think about where I want this business to go and what my objectives were. After all, this was now a business and that ment I needed a plan.

And the plan is? Well, that’s a topic for another blog.

Night.

James - CEO CompareTheUniversities.com

What kind of a day has it been?

Exhausting. Exhilirating. That is the two words I think I will use to describe launch48. I’ve only experience two nights and one day, but each session has sent me away with my head spinning, trying to digest all I’ve learned, Thinking where will I go from here, what is my next move, what is my move 6 steps from now.

I’ll be honest. Today I’ve made some major mistakes. I haven’t delegated properly. I haven’t communicated with the team properly. I have monitored progress effectively and I even failed to difuse a conflict session which ment we lost an important member of our group.

But I’ve learned a lot. I’ve learned that as the leader of a group I can’t just be thinking about what’s next but I need to be thinking 6 moves from here. What’s the end game, what am I trying to shepeard this team to achieve. Because that’s all I need to do. Genetly prod the team in the right direction and the talented individual’s I’m so lucky to have here will run with an idea and produce some outstanding results.

So I promised some talk about our business plan, which starts with our Mission statement:

“By using our site, in 30 seconds a young person will be able to make a decision that will affect the rest of their life”.

We are building a site that will help people make one of the most important decisions the will ever come across. We are supporting that decision.

James

CEO - CompareTheUniversities.com

Which logo?

SQL done!